What it felt like to travel for the first time in a year

The first time I got on a flight after 10 months of not traveling was in January 2021. It was mid-pandemic. Only the elderly and health care workers were getting any vaccinations at that time, and I was definitely engaging in risky behavior going out of the country. When you work in travel for as long as I have, you start to get an itch that needs to be scratched. It’s a weird feeling that won’t go away unless you’re on a flight somewhere new. While I kept going back and forth on whether this would be a good idea or not, I decided to do it anyway and asked a group of friends to go to Sayulita, Mexico for a long weekend.  

Lots of thought went into how I was going to keep this group safe. We bought out a boutique hotel. I asked everyone to quarantine before departing. We also got tested beforehand to make sure that we were all negative. Lastly, everything we were doing was outside, and masks were absolutely required in indoor spaces (including our car rides). I was excited. I was nervous. I couldn’t wait to get back on a flight and see the world from 30,000 feet in the air. I was finally going back to work after the worst 10 months of my career in travel of 20 years.

Getting on the flight was easy for me. There wasn’t anything nerve-racking about it. Everyone followed the rules laid out, and we were on our way. It was freezing in St. Louis at the time, so Sayulita was an extremely warm welcome.

Being able to travel again was exhilarating. New and old friends coming together for laughs, adventure, and a much-needed break from the constant pandemic talk. It was good to feel normal again, even though nothing was normal at all.